Smoke Fairies – Wild Winter

Spacious indie-folk crystallising in the winter weather

I’ve got a soft spot for seasonal releases that don’t make me cringe myself into a prune. Generally, the only solid example of got of a release that caresses this soft spot is Funny Looking Angels by Smith & Burrows. But now, there’s this new one from the Smoke Fairies.

Wild Winter is taken from the band’s new album consisting entirely of Christmas songs. If this song is anything to go by, though, the release will be more than a seasonal novelty and more of a series of songs that encapsulate a feeling. Which, really, is the least you’d expect from a piece of music but it’s something that gets horribly forgotten when churning out the typical cheesy Christmas song.

Hauntingly melancholy and beautifully delivered vocals immediately distinguish this track as anything other than a typical Christmas song though. A steady understated drum beat underpins the walls of echoey guitar that shimmer with a winter quality, while also feeling very indie-folk. It’s unfair to class this as a Christmas song at all, since it plays much more like an indie song simply set in winter.

Melancholy, spacious guitars, and vocals that possess a classic, slightly operatic, quality of delivery: Wild Winter is a very She-Smiths kind of experience. It’s set the bar incredibly high for their seasonal album.